Oh no! Your Mac has crashed! Yes, it’s everyone’s worst nightmare. Not so much today because of inadequate backup data (since a 500 gigabyte hard drive can be found for as little as $129), but because the effort of reacquiring your screen names and passwords can cause a significant rise in blood pressure. But that’s not all. Often, once you have repaired everything, there are sometimes applications and plug-ins which managed to escape damage. You should still use the Apple Disk Utility to check the integrity of the drive. However, once you open your applications up, they cannot seem to find the sample data or programs you need. The easiest way to deal with this is to place your original installer disc in your DVD drive. Close all other applications and go to the installer. Most of the newer East West/Quantum Leap virtual instruments run on the company’s PLAY engine, which is very good in recognizing bad data, and in most cases, all you have to do is to launch the Installer utility and have it place the samples exactly where you wish, including a separate hard drive (which is desirable). If the software still does not respond, you may be forced to do a complete reinstall of all the elements.